Comic Rewind: Red Wolf

Red Wolf discovers a sheriff of Timely’s work is never done in Red Wolf.

We last saw Wolf in Marvel 1872 after he took up the sheriff position in Timely. The town was always rough, but it is worse now. A town full of racists who don’t respect Wolf’s authority because he is Cheyenne therefore the town becomes lawless. The good news is Wolf just beats some respect into them.

One day Wolf comes across some dead people with some strange chest wounds. He follows the foot prints to find the man responsible. It doesn’t take long before Wolf finds his man, but he is not what he expected.

This strange man is from the future and is shooting lightning from a gun and kills a bunch more people. Wolf is able to catch him off guard and throw a knife right into the man’s chest and hit a device. A bright flash of light occurs and Wolf wakes up in a strange land.

When Wolf wakes up he has traveled to our present. Wolf is not making any sense to some kids so they call 911. The police pick him up and Wolf helps them while trying to figure out what happened.

Red Wolf was written by Nathan Edmondson with art by Dalibor Talajic. Marvel Comics published the book in 2016.

I enjoyed Marvel 1872 and decided spend more time with Wolf. The wild west setting I really love and Wolf seemed like he is a decent character. However, I was disappointed in this comic.

The wild west setting is gone by the end of the first issue. Also Wolf proved to be a pretty boring and one-dimensional character. I feel like I never really got to know Wolf and his personality. It is established he is always trying to right all the world’s wrongs, but we learn nothing else about him. This comic seems like it is just an introduction to Wolf, but I don’t feel like I know much about him.

Having Wolf travel from the past to our present is very reminiscent of Captain America and the subtitle is even “Man Out of Time.” However, I don’t think they did a very good job of capturing that theme.

Everyone knows Cap is from the future. When everyone knows they can move past the point where they are confused by his choice of words. Wolf is constantly referring to cars as carriages. People are confused why he keeps calling them that but oh well silly ole Wolf. Wolf never says “Hey I know this sounds weird but I am from 1872 and was sent to the future.” If he did they could tell him they have a literal Norse God protecting the planet so that is not so crazy.

I didn’t feel any connection to either of the police officers. I know nothing about the villains other than one guy really likes snakes. The future guy’s identity was never revealed. It is possible he is a well known villain and I just don’t know about him, but that is unlikely.

This comic was just not compelling in any sort of way. Wolf bored me, the crime story aspect was boring and moving it to the present was a huge mistake.